Iraq: More than 100 killed or wounded in two bombing attacks

Published December 25th, 2007 - 09:44 GMT

A suicide truck bomb killed at least 22 people and injured 80 in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji on Tuesday, the U.S. military and police said.

A suicide truck bomb killed at least 22 people and injured 80 in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji on Tuesday, the U.S. military and police said. According to Reuters, the attack targeted a security checkpoint on a road leading to a residential compound housing employees of Northern Oil Company.

Baiji police chief Saad Nufous said 20 people were killed and 81 wounded in the explosion.

Iraqi army Major Shami Mohammed, an official at the Iraqi-U.S. Joint Coordination centre in Salahuddin province, gave the same death toll and said most of the casualties were civilians, including women and children. He said they had been queueing near a gas station.

An Interior Ministry official put the death toll at 25. The U.S. military said its information suggested 20 people had been killed in the attack.

Following the attack, Iraq's interior minister ordered the dismissal of Baiji's police chief, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. "There was a decision by the interior ministry to fire the Baiji police chief," the spokesman, Major-General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, told Reuters.

This attack was the worst since Dec. 12 when a triple car bombing in the southern city of Amara killed 40 and wounded 125.

Elsewhere, a suicide bomber struck the funeral of a father and son working as armed volunteers with U.S. forces north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing four people and injuring 21, police said.